6 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (June 12)

Brock and Samoa Joe rile up fans, Hardys, Cesaro & Sheamus let air out of balloon.

Brock Lesnar
WWE.com

When the writers sit down to script out Raw, you have to feel for them some weeks. They only have so many bullets in the chamber, and they have to decide where to fire them. Do they put their surefire hit first, in the middle or last?

They decided to put the pull-apart brawl between Samoa Joe and Brock Lesnar first, drawing people in, and plugged a 2-out-of-3 falls tag title match for the main event, a bout that should have been the in-ring highlight of the night, but ultimately fell short due to an unsatisfying finish.

In between, Raw gave us the ongoing “storylines” involving Goldust and R-Truth, Kalisto and the Titus Brand, Miz and Dean Ambrose, and Enzo Amore and Big Cass (and a mystery attacker/attackers). Some of these have gone pretty well, while others have been less than successful.

We also saw the women get crammed into one segment and Roman Reigns get a video package shown twice talking about what his plans for SummerSlam he might be. We also saw Bayley tumble further backward, away from success almost as if she didn’t want to stay on the main roster.

So what got the job done and what fell short? Let’s get to it…

Downs...

7. Running In Place

It’s been four weeks since Goldust blindsided R-Truth and ended their partnership. Since then, Goldust has done multiple vignettes about how “the Golden Age is back.”

But in reality, there has been little to this new Golden Age other than a few movie quotes and competing promos with R-Truth. Sure, newer fans need to be “reintroduced” to this version of Goldust, but nearly a month with no real developments? Really, there should be something happening by now, right?

This could turn around next week with Goldust finally confronting Truth, but if it doesn’t, then this preemptive, tenuous “down” will be more than justified.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fortunately became a fan in time for WrestleMania III and came back as a fan after a long high school hiatus before WM XIV. Monday nights in the Carlson household are reserved for viewing Raw -- for better or worse.